TO I. I. SKVORTSOV-STEPANOV

Written:Written on March 19, 1922Published:First published in 1929 in the journalProletarskaya RevolutsiaNo. 10 (93).

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 36,

      page570.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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ComradeStepanov,

Ihave just finished looking through 160 pages of your
book.[1]

Justas I was furious in cursing you (up to and including
bad language) for being able at such a time to spend months
over refuting
Cunow,[2]so I am delighted with this book.
Now this is a real achievement! Now this is a model of
how one should teach the Russian savagefrom the ABConwards, and to teach him not a “half-science” but thewhole of science.

Write(after you have had aproperrest) another such
little book on the history of religionand against allreligion (including the Kantian and other subtly idealistic
or subtly agnostic religion), with a survey of material on
the history of atheism andon the linksbetween the church
and the bourgeoisie.

Oncemore: greetings and congratulations on a splendid
success.

Yours,Lenin

P.S.There is something wrong on page 97. Respondek has
muddled
matters.[3]I advise you to take the original
source and have a check made. I enclose a letter to Popov
(you can send it through my secretary).

P.P.S.I am sending my preface to the
secretary.[4]

[1]TheMS. of a book by I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov,The Electrification
of the R.S.F.S.R. and the Transitional Phase of the World
Economy, which he prepared under an assignment from Lenin.

Itwas published in March 1922 with Lenin’s introduction.

[2]H.Cunow’sbook,Ursprung der Religion und des Gottesglaubens,
published in Germany in 1913 and translated by
Skvortsov-Stepanov into Russian in 1919. That same year it was issued by
Kommunist Publishers under the titleThe Origin of Religion
and Belief in God.

[3]Areference to a table from the book by Dr. G. Respondek,Weltwirtschaftlicher Stand und Aufgaben der Elektroindustrie, Berlin,
1920, cited by Skvortsov-Stepanov on p. 97 to show the level
of electrification of some industries in the United States. Leninquestioned the figure of 1,585,953 given under the head of “HP
Requirements” for the textile industry, electrical engineering
and foundries and machine-building plants.

Inexplaining why the figure was the same for these branches,
Skvortsov-Stepanov said in a note to the table: “These figures
are dubious because of their absolute equality. The table has
been taken from Respondek’s book, p. 3. He himself is a
sufficiently careful writer. He must have taken these data from American
sources which are not always precise.”

[4]Lenin’sintroduction to Skvortsov-Stepanov’s book,The
Electrification of the R.S.F.S.R. and the Transitional Phase of the World
Economy, Gosizdat, 1922 (see present edition, Vol. 33, pp. 245–
46).